You wouldn't really need to know what the director told them to do because obviously, even if they aren't a terribly bad voice actor, either the casting was just handled wrongly or the direction these actors got were not what they needed to be.
I'm not surprised to hear this and it only reinforces why I usually hate English voice acting.
I agree with you on the firs part but whether or not a dub is good depends mostly on which language you first heard the show in. Granted, there are some exceptions, but for the most part, if you watched the show subbed first, you won't like the dub.
When I can, I download dual-audios and choose whichever I like more. Like in the case of Shana, where I immediately stuck to the dub.
Or
Cowboy Bebop. While I may be prejudiced here since the dub is so hailed, I did check out both voices and had to agree. The dub is superior. But I think a major part of the reason is that in my opinion the japanese audio
sucks. The dub isn't just better, the japanese voice are fucking crap in my opinion. Same goes for
Ghost In The Shell. I had dual audio but the English track had some extremely shitty sound quality (like someone talking too close to his microphone, that effect I mean) and I still watched it with that track because I think it's better.
I've watched
Baccano in japanese, but the dub seems great to me. Death Note is another case where I watched the japanese audio first but like certain dub voices more. Unfortunately, I can't remember which they were. I only remember that Ryuk was better in the dub.
With Haruhi, it changed over time, first I totally preferred the dub, but later I found some japanese voices better. It's pretty much equal now. I find Haruhis, Asakuras and Mikuru's voices to be better in japanese while Koizumi, Tsuruya and the computer club leader are better in English. With Kyon and Yuki, I'm a bit torn. Both VA's for Kyon do an excellent job yet make Kyon sound a lot different. I think I'd go with Crispin Freeman though, just because his voice is sexy and Kyon is sexy.
With Yuki, it's like.. The japanese voice sounds a lot better but is mostly just a faint voice. The english voice has a strong monotone. That makes it sound a lot less "beautiful", but it actually fits because she's supposed to talk in a monotone. In that case, I lean more towards the japanese one though, simply because aesthetically pleasing.
Other than that, the wording of the dub is a lot better. Sentences are formulated in a waaay more awesome way than what I read from the subtitles. "No way!" - "Way."
There's enough stuff that doesn't even have a dub and I don't have to bother with this.
I do feel sorry for tthe voice actor, but I am liking the dub of dissidia.
.*sigh* so much text even though I'm extremely tired.. Good night.
